Possibilities
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.· Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A good relationship enriches and enhances your life. Whether you can attract and create an enriching relationship partly depends on what you think a relationship will do for you.
There are two approaches to creating relationships. Some people want a relationship in order get their needs met. These individuals tend to have a long list of needs they are not meeting anywhere else, and want met when they connect with a partner.
Unfortunately, approaching a relationship to get your needs met tends to attract partners who require you to give up or alter some part of you.
In such a relationship, you may be told you are loved only when you are on your "best" behavior. You may be required to take care of your partner either financially or emotionally in exchange for the continuation of the relationship. You may be asked to put up with unacceptable behavior in order to continue to get your needs met.
People who have the good fortune of creating good relationships enter into relationships with their needs already met, for the sole purpose of enrichment.
In such a relationship, you are free to be yourself. Because you are being yourself, you grow and expand in ways that are good for you. Even in compromise, you learn skills that bring about growth. While being fully yourself, you are more likely to communicate fully and do not have to monitor or control your behavior. Your best attributes are brought out and highlighted. If your partner exhibits unacceptable behavior, you are in a position to ask him or her to instead be the best he or she can be.
It's your choice. You can wait until you get your needs met through your partner and sacrifice important aspects of yourself. Or, you can take stock of your needs now and get them met. You will then be ready to attract a partner who will enrich your life, so that both of you can expand and grow in love.
Which one will you pick?
- Rinatta Paries
About the Author
With nine years of relationship coaching experience, Rinatta works with singles to help them attract their ideal relationship, and she helps individuals to create more love and fulfillment in their existing relationships. She is also the author of the popular Relationship Coach eNewsletter, designed to inspire, educate and coach both singles and couples in how to attract and sustain a healthy, loving, fulfilling relationship. Visit her website, WhatItTakes.com, contact her Toll Free at 1-888-215-6033 or send an email to Coach@WhatItTakes.com
· Marianne Williamson, Enchanted Love What follows are excerpts from several books by Marianne Williamson on the possibilites to be found within loving relationships. "Growth is a detox process, as our weakest, darkest places are sucked up to the surface in order to be released. Often, upon seeing the weaknesses in each other, we have the tendency to go yuck! and walk away on some level. But often it is not a change in partners but rather a change in perception that delivers the love we seek. When we shift our view of the purpose of intimacy - from serving our own needs as we define them to serving a larger process of healing - then an entirely new opportunity presents itself." 1 "Rejecting another human being simply because they are human, has become a collective neurosis. People ask, When will my soul mate get here? But praying for the right person is useless if we're not ready to receive him." 2 "Instead of praying: Dear God bring me someone fabulous, try: Dear God make me into someone fabulous." 1 "We never get crazy like we do around the people we're really attracted to. Then we can see our dysfunctions clearly, and when we're ready, ask God to show us another way. Forgiveness of another person is like the kiss of God. God doesn't need you to police the universe." 2 "Most of the time, we fall in love but can't remain there. The world then calls the state we were in a delusion or infatuation. But we were not deluded. We were not just infatuated. We merely lacked, or someone else lacked, the emotional skills to hold on to the magic when the morning came. Later we tell ourselves that that moment of magic had not been real, but that analysis is just a collective lie. We invented the lie as a way to face the disappointment of having been to the moon on a starlit night, and then fallen back down to what can seem like such a barren earth." 1 "Love will push every button, try every faith, challenge every strength, trigger every weakness, mock every value, and then leave you there to die. But once you begin to turn the corner, to leave love's bush league and enter the pros, there is no worldly activity that can match the joy of flying like an eagle through the skies of a lover's heart." 1 "Relationships are our primary teacher. They are the context in which we either grow into the consciousness of God, or deny ourselves and others the opportunity to do so." 3 "A Course in Miracles says we are to have total commitment in all of our relationships, and they will never compete with one another. Commitment in a relationship means commitment to the process of mutual understanding and forgiveness-no matter how many conversations it takes, nor how uncomfortable those conversations might sometimes be." 2 "The holy relationship is, above all else, a friendship. . . We are not put here to audition one another, put someone on trial, or use other people to gratify our own ego needs. We are not here to fix, change or belittle another person. We are here to support, forgive and heal one another." 2 "From an illumined perspective, falling in love is not neurotic but rather one of the few genuinely nonneurotic things we do on this earth. Falling in love is an effort to retrieve Paradise, that dimension of bliss where no one is blamed for anything and everyone is fully appreciated for who they are. When we fall in love, we drop for however brief a time our tendency to judge. We suspend our disbelief and eschew our faithlessness in another human being." 3 "Intimacy means that we're naked and free. Sometimes in that nakedness, what we reveal is how far apart we are. If we're afraid to reveal that, the distance remains. Intimacy means we're safe enough to reveal the truth in all its creative chaos; that is how the wounds of mankind are exorcised. If a space is created in which two people are totally free to reveal their walls, those walls, in time, come down." 3 "We will bathe in magic water and will allow the sun to dry our skin. We will close our eyes and take in new light. We will listen to the whispering counsel of angels." 1 "So rest in me, and I will rest in you. The rest is in the hands of God." 1 "We will look at each other with the eyes of the new. We will honor each other with the crown of the sky. We will touch each other with the touch of the earth. And love will be our medicine. God will smile, and we will smile, and the world itself will become more glad." 1 "Come with me. I want to show you love." 1 References: May you discover and rejoice in all the possibilites that love and loving relationships have to offer! Peace and Light, email: Michael@N-Spire.com
Illumined Love
I warn you: this will not be easy. I warn you: this will take some work. I warn you: love will burn you up. Are you ready to be burned, or would you rather just grow old?
1 Enchanted Love - The Mystical Power of Intimate Relationships
2 A Return To Love - Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles
3 Illuminata - A Return to Prayer
Michael
